STACK 

ANNEX 


112 


istakes  of 
573     Interchurch 
A_  Steel  Report  . 

8  |  oAddress  by 

S|    Rev.  E.  Victor  Bigelow 
„  ^^         Minister  South  Church 

Andover,  Mass. 
November  22,   1920 


Before  the 

Boston  Ministers  Meeting 
Pilgrim  Hall 


ELBERT  H.  GARY 

71   BROADWAY 

NEW  YORK 

December  1,  1920 
My  Dear  Sir: 

I  have  read  your  splendid  address  before  the 
Boston  Ministers  Meeting  at  Pilgrim  Hall,  November 
22d  ultimo,  and  have  exhibited  it  to  several  of  my  associ- 
ates, each  of  whom  expressed  admiration.  We  are  sur- 
prised that  you,  an  entire  stranger,  should  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  present  the  Interchurch  World  report  in  its  true 
light.  We  are  very  appreciative  and  grateful. 

Have  you  any  objection  to  our  having  this  address 
printed  and  widely  circulated? 

Hoping  for  an  early  reply,  and  with  high  respect  and 
esteem,  I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

Rev.  E.  Victor  Bigelow,  E.   H.   GARY. 

7  Locke  Street, 
Andover,  Mass. 


SOUTH   CHURCH 

ANDOVER,   MASSACHUSETTS 

Organized  1711 
Rev.  E.  Victor  Bigelow,  Minister 

December  2,  1920 
My  Dear  Mr.  Gary: 

I  appreciate  more  than  I  can  tell  you  the  complimentary 
remarks  which  you  and  your  friends  have  made  about  my 
address  to  the  Boston  Ministers.  You  are  very  kind  to 
offer  to  have  it  printed  and  circulated;  because  there 
must  be  a  lot  of  abler  men  whom  you  might  easily  com- 
mandeer to  voice  the  truth  that  I  have  tried  to  express. 

Indeed,  I  am  quite  nonplussed  that  no  other  churchman 
should  have  spoken  with  a  bigger  voice  than  mine. 

Yes,  you  may  print  and  circulate  the  address  at  your 
discretion. 

Again  thanking  you  for  your  generous  appreciation,  I 
remain, 

Yours  sincerely, 

E.  VICTOR  BIGELOW. 


MISTAKES  OF  THE  INTERCHURCH 
STEEL  REPORT 

A  DECENT  Christian  optimism  will  believe 
/~V  that  good  must  come  out  of  the  labors  of 
such  a  group  of  devout  and  beneficent  souls  as 
were  appointed  by  the  Interchurch  Movement 
to  inquire  into  the  famous  Steel  Strike  of 
September  22,  1919.  If  the  wrath  of  men  may 
be  made  to  praise  God,  then  certainly  the  mis- 
takes of  good  men  will  yield  as  much. 

Nevertheless  such  mistakes  are  deplorable, 
and  if  they  bring  shame  and  dishonor  to  us  they 
should  be  repudiated  for  the  sake  of  fairness. 

I  assume  that  you  are  not  influenced  by  the 
advantage  which  might  accrue  to  you  for 
espousing  either  the  side  of  the  strikers  or  that 
of  the  corporation,  and  that  your  impartiality 
is  like  that  of  Brutus — "Set  honor  in  one  eye 
and  death  in  the  other  and  I  will  look  on  both 
indifferently."  This  impartiality,  however,  does 
not  require  you  to  abandon  the  standpoint  of 
chivalry;  for  in  the  contests  of  life  you  are 
obligated  to  be  especially  attentive  to  the  cry 
of  the  needy  or  the  unprotected.  But  God  never 
abandons  justice  in  order  to  be  merciful,  neither 
should  we. 

1.  The  first  mistake  of  the  Interchurch  Com- 
mission was  in  its  blind  espousal  of  the  principle 
of  "Collective  Bargaining."  It  is  a  good 
principle  but  there  are  limits  to  its  realm  and 
there  is  serious  danger  of  stepping  over  those 
limits  into  the  abyss  of  error.  That  labor  has 
the  right  to  be  represented  by  men  of  its  own 
choosing  is  ethically  self  evident  and  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor  has  spread  its  applica- 
tion over  a  tremendously  wide  area  of  industry 
with  its  three  million  members.  Men  who  can't 
speak  so  well  as  they  can  toil  may  ask  a  profes- 
sional labor  leader  to  speak  for  them. 

Men  who  can't  think  so  clearly  through  the 
confusion  of  industry  may  appoint  others  to 
dictate  the  terms  of  their  welfare  and  make 
contracts  for  the-m.  These  functions  are  effec- 
tively performed  by  labor  unions  of  many  kinds. 

But  the  bright  advantages  of  this  collective 
bargaining  seem  to  have  blinded  the  eyes  of  our 


2216893 


commission  of  inquiry  so  that  they  failed  to  see 
another  principle  equally  important  and  more 
fundamental. 

This  other  principle  is  the  "freedom  of  con- 
tract"— that  a  man  is  free  to  do  business  with 
those  of  his  own  choosing.  This  is  more  funda- 
mental than  the  other  because  freedom  to  act 
directly  is  more  basic  than  the  freedom  to  be 
represented.  This  principle  is  vital  to  all  healthy 
competition  and  our  government  has  broken 
into  pieces  huge  corporations  because  they  have 
compelled  men  to  do  business  with  them  instead 
of  honoring  their  freedom  to  do  business  with 
whom  they  choose.  Anyone  who  appreciates  our 
anti-trust  laws  must  see  the  magnitude  and  the 
value  of  this  human  right  but  our  Commission 
seemed  to  be  strangely  blind  to  it. 

The  Steel  Corporation  does  not  choose  to  do 
business  with  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor.  That  Federation  has  an  enormous  in- 
fluence among  laborers  such  as  the  Corporation 
needs  to  employ,  and  it  conceivably  might  be 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  Corporation  to 
deal  with  the  Federation;  but  the  Corporation 
claims  that  both  its  own  interests  and  the  wel- 
fare of  its  employees  are  best  served  by  refusing 
to  negotiate  with  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor.  It  claims  that  its  steel  products  can  be 
and  are  sold  at  a  much  cheaper  cost  to  the 
public,  that  it  can  and  does  pay  higher  wages 
and  that  it  can  and  does  afford  vastly  more 
rewards  for  individual  effort  and  industry  than 
would  be  possible  if  it  should  yield  to  the 
appeals  of  the  Federation  of  Labor  to  negotiate 
with  them. 

Now  we  have  to  concede  that  the  managers  of 
the  Steel  Corporation  know  their  own  business 
and  the  capabilities  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  even  better  than  our  Interchurch 
Commission  know  them;  but  even  though  the 
Steel  Corporation  be  in  error,  that  error  is  not 
to  be  punished  by  taking  from  it  the  freedom  to 
choose  or  to  refuse  to  negotiate  with  the  Feder- 
ation. Any  intimidation  or  compulsion  in  that 
direction  ought  to  be  severely  condemned  by 
churchmen;  but  our  Commission  utters  not  one 
syllable  in  protest. 

Indeed  every  effort  of  the  Corporation  to 
preserve  that  fundamental  human  right  is 


aspersed  by  the  Commission  as  "wilful"  or 
"arbitrary"  or  "autocratic"  or  "uncom- 
promising." Every  display  of  the  right  of  collec- 
tive bargaining  looks  good  and  glorious  to  them; 
but  the  display  of  the  right  to  refuse  to  do  busi- 
ness with  an  undesirable  party  is  deplored  and 
interpreted  as  malicious. 

Suppose  we  apply  this  to  affairs  ecclesiastic. 
Our  Government  refuses  to  deal  with  the  Pope 
at  Rome  even  though  he  may  have  twenty 
millions  of  devotees  within  our  control.  Do  we 
say  that  those  people  may  exercise  the  right  of 
collective  bargaining  through  their  representa- 
tive, the  Pope,  or  that  our  Government  must  do 
business  with  the  Pope?  Governments  in 
Europe  have  received  and  have  negotiated  with 
papal  ambassadors  but  we  Americans  affirm 
that  the  millions  of  American  citizens  who  obey 
the  Pope  do  not  suffer  any  loss  of  their  rights  of 
citizenship  by  the  refusal  of  our  Government  to 
do  business  with  their  church  officials. 

Or,  shift  the  scene  to  the  Boston  police! 
Those  poor  men  who  were  deluded  by  the  good 
appearance  of  "Collective  Bargaining"  and 
joined  the  Federation  of  Labor  just  as  similar 
deluded  policemen  in  thirty-four  American 
cities  joined  the  Federation — they  found  that 
the  municipality  of  Boston  would  not  negotiate 
with  that  Federation  in  its  dealings  with  its 
police.  Samuel  Gompers  and  many  others,  who 
love  blindly  the  principle  of  collective  bargain- 
ing, are  still  blaming  Governor  Coolidge  for 
denying  that  principle.  And  this  is  the  blame 
which  our  Interchurch  Commission  heaps  up  in 
heavy  prejudice  against  the  Steel  Corporation 
upon  every  page  of  its  long  report.  Can  we 
approve  our  Commission  for  this  while  at  the 
same  time  we  are  proud  of  Governor  Coolidge 
for  the  opposite?  If  Governor  Coolidge  was 
right,  then  our  Interchurch  Commission  has 
made  a  serious  mistake. 

2.  The  second  serious  blunder  of  our  Com- 
mission is  vitally  connected  with  the  first;  but 
looks  in  another  direction.  It  was  their  offer  to 
mediate  the  strike  last  December  fifth  when  the 
conflict  was  a  little  over  two  months  old.  Bless- 
ed are  the  peacemakers;  but  beware  the  job. 

Our  Saviour  when  he  was  appealed  to  by  two 
brothers,  who  had  a  squabble  over  property 


rights,  declined  to  mediate,  saying,  "Who  made 
me  a  judge  and  a  divider  over  you?" 

There  are  some  tragic  issues  in  which  our 
offer  to  make  peace  is  sheer  effrontery.  When 
some  chivalrous  minded  congressmen  at  Wash- 
ington last  year  tried  to  get  the  United  States 
Government  to  offer  mediation  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  we  were  grateful  for  some 
sober  minds  that  restrained  them,  showing  not 
only  our  own  unfitness  but  the  sheer  insult  to 
the  English  government  that  was  involved. 

I  suspect  that  the  men  in  charge  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation  are  as  anxious  for  the  welfare 
of  its  employees  as  are  the  members  of  our 
Interchurch  Commission  and  I  believe  that  in 
any  instance  where  the  Corporation  may  have 
overlooked  an  employee's  welfare  the  discovery 
of  it  by  our  Commission  would  be  no  offense  to 
the  Corporation  even  though  its  correction 
might  be  difficult  or  impracticable. 

Mediation  of  that  kind  has  been  done  doubt- 
less by  the  Commission  in  this  famous  report  of 
conditions  in  the  Steel  industry,  and  the  correc- 
tion of  many  injustices  will  doubtless  follow  in 
cases  where  it  is  possible;  but  that  is  not  the 
kind  of  mediation  which  was  offered  on  Decem- 
ber 5th  in  Mr.  Gary's  New  York  office.  They 
offered  to  mediate  between  the  head  of  the 
Steel  Corporation  and  the  committee  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor. 

It  was  a  proposal  simply  absurd,  in  view  of 
the  reiterated  refusals  of  Mr.  Gary  to  do  busi- 
ness with  the  Federation  emphasized  by  more 
than  twenty  years  of  conflict  over  the  point 
with  various  labor  authorities. 

Mr.  W.  Z.  Foster,  the  Secretary  of  the  Feder- 
ation's Committee,  tells  us  that  six  separate 
and  vastly  more  serious  appeals  had  been  made 
to  Mr.  Gary  to  negotiate  with  the  labor 
unions.  First,  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Gompers; 
second,  by  the  National  Committee  equipped 
with  power  to  set  a  strike  date;  third,  by  the 
appeal  through  President  Wilson  to  arrange  a 
conference;  fourth,  by  a  resolution  of  the 
National  Industrial  Conference;  fifth,  by  the 
Amalgamated  Association  of  Steel  Workers; 
sixth,  by  John  Fitzpatrick  through  the  Senate 
Committee.  And  now,  with  the  innocence  of 
teasing  childhood  the  Interchurch  Commission 


comes  to  ask  for  the  seventh  time  the  same 
question. 

I  am  not  surprised  that  Mr.  Gary,  in  his 
courteous  way,  diverted  the  conversation  and 
almost  humorously  toyed  with  them — a  man  of 
less  grace  would  have  shown  his  annoyance,  for 
this  must  have  seemed  to  him  a  supremely  stupid 
performance  on  the  part  of  our  Commission. 

But  the  effect  was  a  serious  one  upon  the 
Commission;  it  gave  them  a  stinging  sense  of  the 
refusal  to  negotiate  just  as  the  labor  unions 
had  felt  it.  The  Interchurch  Commission  feeling 
itself  snubbed  by  Mr.  Gary's  refusal  to  deal 
with  the  A.  F.  of  L.  through  them,  commenced 
its  study  of  the  steel  business  with  a  strong 
prejudice  against  this  aloofness,  attributing  to 
it  almost  all  of  the  mass  of  evils  discovered  in  the 
business  and  readily  believing  a  lot  of  testimony 
secured  from  other  malcontents  who  were  dis- 
appointed in  not  having  the  unions  recognized. 
The  various  chapters  of  the  report  are  named 
with  the  patronymic  "no-conference,"  as 
follows:  "  The  Twelve  Hour  Day  in  a  No-Con- 
ference Industry"  "Wages  in  a  No-Conference 
Industry"  "Grievances  and  Control  in  a  No- 
Conference  Industry"  "Social  Consequences 
of  Arbitrary  Control." 

The  Commission  seized  upon  one  of  Mr. 
Gary's  words  in  his  testimony  before  the  Senate 
Committee  to  characterize  what  they  regard  as- 
the  prevailing  evil  of  the  entire  business.  Mr. 
Gary  said  "the  Corporation  during  the  war  in- 
creased the  wages  many  times  voluntarily, 
arbitrarily."  The  word  "arbitrarily"  has  a 
sinister  sound  in  the  ears  of  Americans  and  Mr. 
Gary  qualified  it  by  saying  "but  arbitrarily  in 
favor  of  the  workmen  intending  to  be  fair  and 
reasonable  and  to  treat  the  subject  on  the  basis 
of  merit.  The  largest  percentages  of  increases 
have  been  made  to  those  receiving  the  lowest 
wages."  "  We  have  taken  into  consideration  the 
increases  in  our  earnings  and  have  intended  to 
more  than  keep  pace  with  the  increased  cost  of 
living,  which  we  have  done,  and  during  the  war 
we  have  increased  the  wages  eight  times  always 
voluntarily;  there  was  never  a  single  demand 
made."  "We  were  influenced  by  the  fact  that 
our  increased  earnings  permitted  us  to  do  it  and 
we  did  take  into  account  also  the  idea  of  giving 


them  what  we  conceived  to  be  the  employee's 
share  in  the  prosperity,  which  we  always  do." 
(P.  171 — Gary's  testimony)  Mr.  Gary's  formula 
in  matter  of  wages  was  clearly  expressed  in  his 
Trinity  College  address  (June  23, 1919).  "When 
there  is  a  well  grounded  doubt  in  regard  to  wage 
rates,  it  should  be  resolved  in  favor  of  the  em- 
ployee." But  Mr.  Gary's  "arbitrary"  method  in 
favor  of  the  employee  is  twisted  by  our  Com- 
mission report  into  "arbitrary"  method  against 
the  employee. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  word  to  use  but  it  need 
not  be  soft-pedaled  if  the  Commission  cares  to 
set  it  forth.  In  that  case  we  have  merely  to 
estimate  it  in  comparison  with  the  other  alter- 
native, namely  "Labor  Union  Conference." 
Are  there  no  arbitrary  decrees  in  the  labor 
unions?  Are  there  no  cases  where  labor  men  are 
told  the  number  of  hours  they  shall  work,  the 
kind  of  trade  they  may  learn,  the  particular 
employer  they  may  or  may  not  engage  with? 
Wherever  they  decree  a  "Closed  Shop"  it 
means  that  no  man  can  obtain  employment  in 
that  shop  except  through  and  upon  the  terms 
and  conditions  imposed  by  the  labor  unions. 
He  is  compelled  to  join  the  union  and  to  submit 
to  the  dictation  of  its  leader  before  he  can  enter 
the  place  of  business.  If  he  joins  the  union  he  is 
then  restricted  by  its  leader,  as  to  place  of  work, 
hours  of  work,  and  compensation,  advancement 
in  position  with  no  regard  for  his  merit,  and 
sometimes  by  the  decree  of  the  union  leader  is 
called  out  and  prevented  from  work  for  days  or 
weeks  when  he  has  no  real  grievance,  while  he 
and  his  family  suffer  for  want  of  the  necessities 
of  life. 

The  poor  workman  has  no  escape  from 
arbitrary  treatment  under  the  operation  of 
labor  union  conference,  and  the  vast  majority 
of  the  two  hundred  thousand  employees  of  the 
U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  prefer  the  "arbitrary" 
treatment  by  the  Corporation  rather  than  the 
arbitrary  treatment  by  labor  unions. 

But  the  Interchurch  Report  is  quite  unfair  to 
Mr.  Gary  in  calling  him  arbitrary  and  it  has 
seriously  misled  so  amiable  a  critic  as  the 
editor  of  our  Congregationalist  who  says  "In- 
dustrial justice  and  peace  will  be  found  only  as 
the  Gary  policy  is  supplanted  by  a  more 

8 


democratic,  humane  and  righteous  one.  It  may 
be  that  another  and  greater  struggle  than  the 
1919  steel  strike  will  come  before  reactionary 
management  will  yield  to  right  and  reason." 
I  would  say  to  this  editor,  that  it  is  for  the  very 
purpose  of  "right  and  reason"  that  Mr.  Gary 
refuses  to  permit  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation  to 
be  subjected  to  the  control  of  an  arbitrary 
labor  union.  He  refuses  consultation  with  the 
A.  F.  of  L.  because  he  is  sure  of  a  better  con- 
ference with  the  steel  workers  than  he  possibly 
could  get  by  means  of  that  Federation.  He 
finds  out  from  his  fellow  laborers  in  that  vast 
industry  a  great  deal  more  accurately  their 
desires  and  capabilities,  than  the  labor  unions 
could  ascertain  them.  He  has  an  army  of  men 
whose  business  it  is  to  report  regularly  upon 
every  phase  of  life  that  is  concerned  with  the 
production  of  steel.  There  is  an  open  invitation 
to  any  man  or  group  of  men  from  any  depart- 
ment to  appeal  to  the  management  for  adjust- 
ment of  any  question.  But  the  Corporation  does 
not  wait  for  these  appeals;  it  has  hundreds  of 
employees  whose  entire  work  is  to  seek  out  and 
to  supply  the  needs  of  employees  before  they 
are  formulated. 

The  efficiency  of  these  efforts  on  the  part  of 
the  Corporation,  really  to  confer  with  its  in- 
dividual employees,  brings  only  the  greater 
condemnation  from  our  Interchurch  Commis- 
sion because  when  the  need  of  complaints  from 
the  men  is  removed  by  this  careful  supervision, 
their  failure  to  come  up  to  the  management  is 
reported  as  a  proof  that  no  conference  is  allowed. 

The  Interchurch  complaint  that  only  minor 
questions  and  not  wages  and  hours  of  employ- 
ment were  the  substance  of  conference  with  the 
steel  management  is  only  partly  true.  The 
question  of  hours  and  wages  has  been  made  a 
specialty  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor; 
but  there  is  absolutely  no  proof  that  wages  have 
been  made  any  higher  in  other  industries  by  the 
A.  F.  of  L.  than  they  are  in  the  steel  industry 
where  this  question  is  determined  by  the  Cor- 
poration. In  the  steel  works  common  labor  got 
46.2  cents  per  hour  for  the  year  1919  while  navy 
yard  common  labor  was  paid  44.5,  nearly  5% 
less.  Railroad  section  men  got  37.2  cents  and 
other  yard  men  37.4  or  20%  less  than  steel  men. 


But  the  larger  advantage  of  the  steel  men  was 
not  in  the  greater  amount  per  hour  but  in  their 
freedom  to  put  in  more  time  so  that  their 
week's  pay  of  $34.19  was  far  ahead  of  that  of  the 
navy  yard  laborer's  $21.36  or  the  R.  R.  laborer's 
$18.00  per-  week.  Compared  with  the  highly 
unionized  building  trades  of  New  York  where 
wages  are  the  highest,  the  skilled  and  semi- 
skilled steel  workers  stood  well  on  a  par,  for 
while  their  average  of  78.4  cents  per  hour  was  a 
bit  under  the  New  York  builders  83.5  cents,  yet 
the  total  weekly  earnings  of  the  steel  men  were 
$51.74  per  week  as  compared  with  the  builders 
$36.74. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  the  Gary  method  of 
paying  wages  truly  consults  the  interests  of  the 
workmen  not  less  but  more  than  the  labor 
union  method  does  it. 

The  fact  is  that  the  union  method  could  not 
come  within  reach  of  the  Gary  method  in  get- 
ting wages  for  its  men  if  it  were  not  for  the 
raised  prices  of  union-made  goods  that  takes 
the  increase  out  of  the  public.  The  Gary  method 
enables  the  steel  workers  to  get  more  pay  with- 
out increasing  the  costs  of  the  public.  This  is  the 
great  weakness  of  the  union  methods;  they  do 
not  take  into  consideration  the  interests  of  the 
public,  neither  do  they  provide  any  impetus  in 
the  movement  for  production. 

By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them! 

Senator  Kenyon's  committee  reported  from 
their  investigation  of  the  Steel  Strike  (P.  10): 
"Few  of  the  witnesses  examined  made  any  com- 
plaint as  to  wages  *  *  *  It  is  the  opinion  of  the 
Committee  that,  broadly  speaking,  the  em- 
ployees of  the  steel  industry  at  the  time  of  the 
strike  were  fairly  well  satisfied  with  the  wages 
received  and  that  such  question  was  not  persua- 
sive at  all  in  any  consideration  of  a  strike." 

This  Senate  Committee  was  not  looking  for 
any  items  favorable  to  the  Steel  Corporation 
and  their  deliberate  judgment  of  the  remarkable 
success  of  the  Gary  method  of  settling  the  ques- 
tion of  wages  ought  to  have  convinced  the  Inter- 
church  Commission  if  they  had  been  fair  minded. 

It  might  readily  happen  that  the  fixing  of 
wages  without  conference  with  a  labor  union 
would  be  tyrannically  unfair  to  the  men;  but 
according  to  the  Senate  Committee's  report  such 

10 


was  not  the  case  in  this  instance  and  our  Inter- 
church  Commission  has  been  fooled  by  its  own 
over-estimate  of  the  value  of  labor  union 
conference  in  fixing  wages. 

While  labor  unions  can  be  of  immense  value 
in  some  cases  in  gaining  rights  or  privileges  to 
laboring  men  as  against  unfair  or  dull  em- 
ployers, they  can  be  an  unbearable  nuisance  to 
a  keen  and  fairminded  employer  who  is  eager  to 
do  for  his  workmen  vastly  more  than  the 
unions  can  do.  The  evident  weakness  of  the 
prevailing  union  methods  is  that  they  fight 
against  the  employer  and  make  exactions  which 
cramp  him  and  reduce  the  productive  efficiency 
of  the  enterprise.  While  this  often  brings  larger 
pay  to  the  workers  immediately  concerned,  it 
takes  value  out  of  the  public  and  reduces  the 
common  good. 

When  we  can  find  a  man  like  Mr.  Gary  who  is 
strong  enough  to  resist  all  labor  union  com- 
pulsions and  can  keep  his  Corporation  free  to 
adjust  wages  and  labor  conditions  to  the  highest 
standard  in  the  world  while  keeping  down  the 
cost  to  the  public,  he  is  worth  millions  to  us  and 
we  ought  to  have  had  an  Interchurch  Com- 
mission clear-eyed  enough  to  see  it. 

One  concrete  instance  of  conference  with 
steel  workers  illustrated  Mr.  Gary's  attitude. 
The  president  of  a  subsidiary  company  reported 
a  strike  of  a  thousand  or  more  men  and  said  to 
Mr.  Gary,  "  It  is  very  easy  for  me  to  fill  this  mill 
and  I  will  proceed  to  do  it.  There  was  no  reason 
for  their  going  out."  But  said  Mr.  Gary,  "Have 
you  taken  pains  to  find  out;  has  anybody 
spoken  to  you?"  "No,"  he  replied,  "I  have  not 
received  any  complaint  whatever."  "Are  you 
sure,"  said  Mr.  Gary,  "that  no  complaint  has 
been  made  to  anyone?  You  had  better  go  and 
find  out  before  you  decide  what  you  are  going 
to  do."  He  went  back  and  found  from  the  fore- 
man that  a  committee  had  come  and  com- 
plained about  three  things  that  they  thought 
were  wrong.  The  subsidiary  president  said  the 
things  were  not  very  important.  Mr.  Gary  said, 
"That  is  not  the  question.  Are  you  wrong  in 
any  respect?  It  seems  to  me  you  are  wrong  with 
respect  to  two  of  those  things  but  not  the  third. 
Now  you  go  right  back  to  your  factory  and  just 
put  up  a  sign  that  with  reference  to  those  two 

11 


particular  things  the  practice  will  be  changed." 
(P.  36  Gary's  testimony.) 

Our  Interchurch  Commission  makes  nothing 
of  the  stern  insistence  by  Mr.  Gary  that  the 
steel  officials  shall  yield  any  point  of  justice, 
however  slight,  that  is  fairly  claimed  by  the 
men;  but  the  Commission  takes  offense  that  a 
sign  should  be  put  up  instead  of  calling  the 
committee  into  the  office  to  make  the  con- 
cession. Such  picayunish  judgment  by  our 
representatives  ought  to  bring  the  blush  of 
shame  to  us  all.  They  try  to  make  it  appear  that 
the  use  of  a  sign  to  give  notice  symbolizes  a 
universal  autocracy;  but  it  is  just  the  common- 
sense  method  that  any  factory  employs.  The 
"collective-bargaining"  bug  seems  to  have 
disordered  their  common-sense. 

Now  just  what  is  the  proper  sphere  of 
"collective  bargaining"  in  making  any  industry 
successful,  is  worth  a  bit  more  of  inquiry  than 
our  Commission  gives  it.  The  great  and  central 
object  of  an  industry  is  to  produce  merchan- 
dise; for  that  the  capital  is  invested,  for  that  the 
laborers  are  assembled,  and  for  that  the 
customers  pay.  But  the  problem  of  production 
is  not  tackled  by  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor.  They  openly  advocate  a  reduced  pro- 
duction. They  pass  decrees  for  the  purpose  of 
hindering  production.  Why  then,  in  the  name  of 
common  sense,  should  they  be  taken  into  part- 
nership or  consultation  by  an  industry  whose 
chief  aim  is  to  produce?  They  might  desire  to 
come  in  as  a  parasite  to  devour  part  of  the  pro- 
duct or  they  might  act  as  a  hindrance  or  brake, 
but  this  negative  functioning  is  a  very  secon- 
dary sort  and  one  that  may  be  abundantly 
supplied  by  the  natural  laziness  of  men  and  by 
the  many  hindrances  that  are  inevitable  in 
getting  anything  out  of  Nature. 

It  is  true  that  the  A.  F.  of  L.  being  interested 
in  the  welfare  of  employees  might  have  some 
propaganda  to  urge  upon  the  management  of 
any  industry  inasmuch  as  men  are  the  means  or 
agents  of  production,  but  the  management  of 
the  men  in  the  task  of  production  must  be  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  have  undertaken  to 
produce  and  not  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
hinder  production.  Perhaps  the  A.  F.  of  L.  may 
adopt  a  program  to  facilitate  production,  after 

12 


its  consultation  during  the  past  week  with  Mr. 
Hoover  and  thus  it  might  become  a  fair  candi- 
date for  the  councils  of  producing  industries,  but 
that  is  a  prospect  for  the  future  merely. 

Much  the  same  statements  would  apply  to 
the  offer  of  the  Interchurch  Commission  to 
mediate  or  to  give  counsel  in  the  steel  industry. 
The  Commission  is  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
men  but  it  has  given  no  hostages  to  the  cause  of 
producing  steel  and  its  genius  is  therefore  in- 
applicable. The  Steel  Corporation  is  responsible 
for  its  treatment  of  men  engaged  in  its  work  of 
production,  and  woe  betide  that  corporation  if  it 
harms  them  or  withholds  their  rights  during 
the  process  of  production;  but  its  essential  job 
is  to  produce  steel  and  for  that  end  its  own 
management  must  be  responsible.  The  advice 
and  good  will  and  productive  genius  of  all  the 
men  employed  are  all  necessary,  but  the 
responsibility  of  using  that  advice,  the  methods 
of  gaining  and  keeping  that  good  will,  and  the 
success  in  utilizing  their  productive  genius, 
these  are  the  cares  of  the  managers  of  the  Steel 
Corporation.  The  chief  burden  of  failure  will 
fall  upon  them  and  the  chief  reward  of  success 
will  accrue  to  them.  It  is  plain  to  any  practical 
mind  that  the  natural  sort  of  control  in  this 
kind  of  activity  must  be  centralized  control. 
Our  Commission  is  grievously  at  fault  in  stig- 
matizing this  control  as  "militarized."  It  is 
indeed  systematized  to  the  high  degree  that 
accounts  for  the  supreme  success  of  the  greatest 
producing  organization  in  the  world;  but  it  is 
not  military  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  engine  of 
destruction,  neither  is  it  military  in  the  sense  of 
being  a  concatenated  system  of  command  and 
obedience.  That  military  organization  is  also 
highly  centralized  does  not  justify  our  Com- 
mission in  calling  the  steel  control  by  the 
opprobrious  epithet  "militarized."  The  organi- 
zation is  not  for  the  purpose  of  exercising 
control  but  for  the  purpose  of  producing  steel. 

Inasmuch  as  the  product  is  measured  by 
dollars,  it  is  proper  andfitthatthe Finance  Com- 
mittee should  head  up  the  producing  control. 

Prof.  Carlton  Parker  in  the  January  Atlantic 
made  some  keen  observations  about  the  danger 
of  a  finance  committee  being  too  far  separated 
from  the  individual  human  producer,  leaving  a 

13 


wide  seed-ground  for  sowing  discontent  in  in- 
dustry; but  this  danger  is  not  to  be  overcome  by 
taking  control  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Finance 
Committee,  as  our  Commission  would  recom- 
mend. 

The  best  way  is  to  humanize  the  finance  com- 
mittee as  it  has  been  done  with  remarkable  suc- 
cess in  the  personality  of  its  Chairman,  Mr.  Gary. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Finance  Committee 
needs  to  know  how  the  men  feel  in  regard  to 
hours  and  wages  and  conditions  of  work  and  it 
will  fail  in  proportion  as  it  ignores  these  facts. 
Some  such  method  of  securing  shop  sentiment 
as  the  Colorado  Fuel  &  Iron  Company  has 
adopted  might  aid  them,  or  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  might  aid  them  in  finding 
these  facts,  or  the  Steel  Corporation  might 
spurn  both  of  these  methods  and  find  a  better 
method  for  itself.  The  brutal  necessity  of  meet- 
ing the  needs  of  the  men  is  always  there  and  un- 
swerving financial  penalties  await  upon  any 
failure  to  ascertain  and  to  keep1  the  good  will 
of  the  men.  Collective  bargaining  may  or  may 
not  be  used,  that  is  wholly  secondary,  the  prime 
necessity  is  that  the  Steel  Corporation  or  any  in- 
dustry must  be  autonomous,  it  must  run  its  own 
affairs  if  it  would  reach  the  highest  perfection. 

In  the  task  of  meeting  the  needs  of  its  em- 
ployees the  Steel  Corporation  has  spent  more 
money  and  exercised  a  wider  range  of  sym- 
pathetic interest  than  any  other  corporation 
and  is  out  of  sight  beyond  all  the  highly  union- 
ized industries  like  railroads,  building  trades 
and  mines. 

Mr.  Close,  the  Manager  of  the  Bureau  of 
Safety,  Sanitation  and  Welfare  reports  the 
expenditure  of  nine  million  dollars  a  year  for  the 
last  eight  years  upon  such  substantial  benefits  as : 

Dwellings  at  low  rental     .   .   .      27,553 

Churches 

Schools 45 

Swimming  pools 

Playgrounds  and  fields   .... 

Drinking  fountains      3,077 

Emergency  stations 286 

Base  hospitals 

Surgeons  and  Physicians    .    .   . 
Teachers  and  Instructors    ...  222 

Pensions 2,940 

— and  great  quantities  of  other  helps  and  con- 
veniences. Now  none  of  these  things  are  pro- 

14 


vided  by  "Collective  bargaining"  and  our 
Commission  refers  to  them  with  the  same  slur 
that  many  labor  unions  use  in  these  words, 
"The  Corporation's  executives,  in  order  to  meet 
the  Corporation  policy,  are  forced  to  grind  the 
faces  of  the  Hunkies  and  to  trust  to  welfare  to 
salve  the  exacerbations."  Even  Prof.  Graham 
Taylor,  who  apparently  doesn't  see  the  root  of 
the  Commission's  bitterness,  reproves  them 
squarely  for  this  insult. 

If  the  cost  of  all  these  conveniences  were  used 
for  extra  wages  as  the  sinister  critics  demand, 
it  would  add  a  cent  and  a  half  an  hour  on  the 
average;  which  means  practically  nothing  com- 
pared with  the  vast  utility  of  these  common 
conveniences  that  all  may  enjoy  and  that  save 
the  lives  of  thousands  every  year.  All  these 
things  come  from  the  "no-conference"  policy 
of  the  Corporation  and  they  would  be  im- 
possible to  provide  without  raising  the  price  of 
steel  if  the  A.  F.  of  L.  were  consulted. 

Whenever  the  management  provides  for  the 
welfare  of  the  men  or  rewards  any  of  them  for 
exceptional  service  such  favors  are  readily 
interpreted  by  its  foes  as  a  kind  of  bribery  and 
all  forms  of  stock  owning  or  insurance  and  other 
privileges  are  condemned  by  those  who  want  to 
keep  the  ranks  of  labor  solidly  arrayed  for  battle 
against  the  employer.  It  is  plainly  necessary  in 
case  of  war  to  keep  your  soldiers  from  hob- 
nobbing with  the  enemy,  and  labor  unions  may 
be  wise  in  this  policy  for  there  seems  to  be  a 
fundamental  antagonism  between  capital  and 
labor  regarding  what  portion  of  the  product 
shall  fall  to  each.  But  while  we  know  that  this 
antagonism  has  made  a  state  of  industrial  war 
in  which  labor  unions  have  developed  into 
armies,  is  it  not  possible  to  compose  this  antago- 
nism without  the  necessity  of  war  in  special 
instances?  If  the  workers  in  the  Steel  Corpor- 
ation can  get  their  share  of  the  product  without 
an  industrial  war,  then  an  army  or  labor  union 
will  not  be  needed,  and  it  will  be  perfectly 
appropriate  for  men  to  receive  favors  and  for 
the  Corporation  to  extend  welfare  in  a  multitude 
of  forms  without  the  charge  of  bribery. 

In  such  a  case  the  Corporation  in  binding  to 
its  cause  most  of  the  skilled  workers  and  in 
offering  to  all  of  its  employees  many  items  of 

15 


partnership  such  as  stock  ownership,  is  not 
engaged  in  a  selfish  scheme  but  is  doing  more  for 
its  employees  than  a  war  could  do,  successfully 
fought  by  labor  unions. 

The  Interchurch  Commission  is  not  justified 
in  its  insinuations  that  the  Steel  Corporation  by 
all  its  safety,  sanitation  and  welfare  work  is  en- 
gaged in  undermining  opposition  for  the  pur- 
pose of  subjugating  its  employees. 

3.  The  third  mistake  of  vital  import  made  by 
our  Commission  was  in  assuming  the  functions 
of  a  prosecuting  attorney  when  they  were  only 
a  "commission  of  inquiry."  They  were  granted 
ten  thousand  dollars  to  ascertain  facts  of  the 
steel  industry  to  lay  before  our  churches  so  that 
we  might  judge  intelligently;  but  they  decided 
at  once  that  the  Corporation  was  guilty  and 
then  proceeded  to  find  facts  that  would  prove  it. 

The  result  is  a  bookful  of  testimony  that  is 
untrustworthy  and  lopsided.  If  you  ask  why 
the  Corporation  can't  present  the  other  side, 
the  answer  is  the  report  is  so  manifestly  unjust 
that  it  will  rot  of  its  own  corruption  and  no  one 
will  believe  it  except  those  who  desire  to  knock 
the  Steel  Trust.  Even  Professor  Graham  Taylor 
deplores  the  too  free  use  of  the  committee's  bias 
in  presenting  their  evidence. 

Throughout  the  book  it  is  their  practice  to 
refute  or  to  discount  testimony  from  the  Cor- 
poration and  to  accept  without  question  quanti- 
ties of  aspersion  from  disgruntled  ones. 

A  salient  case  of  this  interesting  perversion  is 
their  report  of  discharges  for  unionism.  (P. 
208  ff.)  Mr.  Gary  flatly  denied  to  the  Senate 
Committee  that  workmen  were  discharged  be- 
cause they  belonged  to  unions,  saying;  "If  that 
has  been  done  in  a  single  case  or  a  few  cases,  it 
has  been  contrary  to  our  positive  instructions 
and  the  foreman  would  be  disciplined  if  he  dis- 
obeyed these  instructions  a  second  time.  *  *  *  It 
is  possible,  though  I  do  not  think  probable,  that 
some  foreman  may  in  some  instances  have 
shown  some  feeling  against  a  union  man  when 
he  discovered  it.  I  do  not  know  of  any  such  case. 
It  would  be  directly  contrary  to  our  orders,  con- 
trary to  all  our  reports  and  contrary  to  the  in- 
formation I  have.  I  have  denied  the  proposition 
emphatically.  It  is  not  true." 

The  Commission  retorts  in  the  next  line  "It 

16 


is  true,"  and  they  say  they  have  "special  evi- 
dence consisting  of  hundreds  of  signed  state- 
ments by  steel  workers  who  were  discharged." 

Now  isn't  that  simple!  Do  you  suppose  that  a 
labor  agitator  when  discharged  for  agitating 
would  miss  an  opportunity  of  making  a  signed 
statement  that  he  was  discharged  for  being  a 
member  of  a  union.  Out  of  the  thousands  of 
union  men  in  the  employ  of  the  Corporation  is 
it  any  wonder  that  hundreds  of  them  might 
become  agitators  when  Mr.  Foster  started  his 
campaign  of  boring  from  within?  Who  knows 
how  many  hundreds  of  rabid  disturbers  were 
deliberately  sent  by  Mr.  Foster  into  the  steel 
industry  to  prepare  for  that  campaign  a  year 
before  the  strike  was  called. 

For  every  one  who  said  he  was  discharged  for 
belonging  to  a  union  there  are  hundreds  of 
union  men  still  remaining  in  the  steel  industry 
without  any  question  whether  they  belong  to  a 
union  or  not,  whichis  very  good  evidence  that  it  is 
agitation  and  trouble-making  rather  than  union 
membership  that  accounts  for  the  discharge. 

Another  case  of  the  Commission's  serious  un- 
trust worthiness  in  regard  to  "facts"  is  in  their 
statement  about  wages.  They  say  in  the  report 
(P.  90),  "Half  of  the  strikers  interviewed  by  the 
Senate  Committee  talked  about  low  wages." 

But  the  Senate  Committee  says  (P.  10  of 
Senate  Report  289),  "The  question  of  wages  is 
not  involved  in  the  controversy.  Few  of  the 
witnesses  examined  made  any  complaint  as  to 
wages."  Did  I  say  that  somebody  lied?  No,  I 
say  simply  that  we  cannot  depend  upon  our 
Commission  for  the  facts  even  though  we  paid 
them  $10,000  to  get  the  facts. 

The  squint  of  judgment  that  disabled  the 
commission  of  inquiry  is  illustrated  clearly  in 
their  diagnosis  of  the  reasons  for  the  strike. 
They  questioned  some  five  hundred  steel 
workers  carefully,  besides  talking  with  leaders 
on  both  sides  and  report  that  "the  causes  of  the 
strike  lay  in  the  hours,  wages  and  control  of  jobs 
and  in  the  manner  in  which  all  these  were 
fixed."  (P.  11.)  Their  method  of  reaching  this 
conclusion  is  naively  confessed  but  is  truly 
amusing.  Suppose  you  had  tried  to  find  out  the 
causes  of  the  recent  world  war  by  questioning 
five  hundred  soldiers  on  both  sides  and  their 

17 


leaders,  you  would  have  found  the  true  causes 
about  as  well  as  they  found  the  causes  of  the  strike. 

The  Senate  Committee  says  plainly  that  "the 
question  of  wages  is  not  involved  in  the  contro- 
versy" and  the  question  of  an  eight-hour-day 
was  the  least  of  four  contributory  causes.  It 
says  (P.  11),  "The  underlying  cause  of  the 
strike  is  the  determination  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  to  organize  the  steel 
workers  in  opposition  to  the  known  and  long- 
established  policy  of  the  steel  industry  against 
unionization." 

In  substantial  agreement  with  this  is  the 
cause  asserted  by  Mr.  Fitzpatrick  viz:  Mr. 
Gary's  refusal  to  confer  with  the  committee 
claiming  to  represent  the  employees. 

In  similar  fashion  Mr.  Gompers  tells  the 
cause,  "  The  denial  of  the  right  of  the  employees 
to  be  heard  by  their  own  representatives," 
meaning  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 

But  most  illuminating  of  all  is  the  disclosure 
of  Mr.  Wm.  Z.  Foster  in  his  own  book  on  the 
Great  Strike.  Let  me  quote  him.  (P.  17.)  "But 
as  the  war  wore  on  and  the  United  States 
joined  the  general  slaughter,  the  situation 
changed  rapidly  in  favor  of  unions.  The  demand 
for  soldiers  and  munitions  had  made  labor 
scarce;  the  Federal  administration  was  friendly; 
the  right  to  organize  was  freely  conceded  by  the 
government  and  even  insisted  upon;  the  steel 
industry  was  the  master-clock  of  the  whole  war 
program  and  had  to  be  kept  in  operation  at  all 
costs.  The  gods  were  indeed  fighting  on  the  side 
of  labor.  It  was  an  opportunity  to  organize  the 
industry  such  as  might  never  again  occur." 
These  words  are  plain  and  we  know  what  Mr. 
Foster  meant  by  "organizing  an  industry;"  it 
meant,  to  secure  for  the  A.  F.  of  L.  a  controlling 
power  in  the  management  of  the  Steel  Corpor- 
ation. Mr.  Foster  seizing  this  golden  oppor- 
tunity readily  persuaded  the  officials  of  the 
A.  F.  of  L.  to  launch  "one  mighty  drive  to 
organize  the  steel  plants  of  America."  June 
10-20,  1918. 

Now  we  know  well  enough  that  there  are 
always  causes  for  complaint — wages,  hours,  cus- 
toms, management,  personal  grudges — and  espe- 
cially at  the  close  of  our  great  war  the  spirit  of 

18 


violence  and  rebellion  wasso  abundant  asto  make 
it  easy  for  any  disturber  to  raise  a  following. 

All  of  these  causes  came  trooping  along  to 
support  Mr.  Foster's  purpose  of  compelling  the 
Steel  Corporation  to  submit  to  some  require- 
ments of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  It  didn't  need  to  be  a 
closed  shop;  it  needed  to  be  only  some  item  of 
conference  between  Mr.  Gary  and  the  officers  of 
the  A.  F.  of  L.  that  would  prove  to  workmen 
everywhere  that  the  Steel  Corporation  would 
mind  the  behests  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  It  is  strange 
that  our  Commission  could  not  discern  this  root 
cause  which  the  Senate  Committee  declares, 
which  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  the  chairman  of  the 
strike  and  Mr.  Foster  the  chief  organizer  of  it 
both  confess,  which  Mr.  Gompers  on  one  side 
and  Mr.  Gary  on  the  other  agree  was  the  cause 
of  the  strike. 

It  is  in  this  particular  that  our  Interchurch. 
Commission  resembled  the  Boston  Commission 
of  Thirty  which  inquired  into  the  police  strike 
and  reported  the  causes  of  it  to  be  bad  station 
houses,  long  hours,  short  wages,  and  a  lot  of 
other  wicked  things;  but  our  Governor  with 
simple  Yankee  candor  passed  by  all  these  causes 
and  picked  out  this — that  the  American  Feder- 
ation of  Labor  was  being  intruded  as  a  factor  in 
the  management  of  our  police;  and  that  he 
called  treason. 

But  our  Interchurch  Commission's  failure  to 
see  the  true  cause  of  the  strike  is  followed  by 
misjudgments  about  hours  and  wages  which 
they  mistook  for  the  main  cause.  Somebody  in 
our  Federal  Council  of  Churches  whether  Mr. 
Tippy,  the  Chairman  of  the  Social  Service  Com- 
mission I  know  not,  but  somebody  is  respon- 
sible for  an  industrial  heresy  about  hours  of 
work  that  may  have  poisoned  the  judgment  of 
our  Interchurch  Commission.  It  is  the  first 
principle  of  their  industrial  creed  and  it  ad- 
vocates gradually  and  reasonably  reducing  "the 
hours  of  labor  to  the  lowest  practicable  point." 
This  is  the  hobo's  doctrine.  It  glorifies  leisure 
and  denounces  toil.  How  could  it  ever  be  ad- 
vocated by  a  confessed  follower  of  the  ceaseless 
Toiler  of  Galilee  who  said  in  reply  to  his  critics 
that  objected  to  his  Sunday  work,  "My  Father 
worketh  hitherto  and  I  work!"  The  extent  to 
which  this  heresy  has  spread  amazes  us.  It  was 

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adopted  by  our  last  Congregational  Council  in 
its  industrial  platform  and  is  published  by  our 
social  service  department  throughout  the 
country.  It  ought  to  bring  the  blush  of  shame  to 
every  one  of  us  that  believes  in  work  as  the 
greatest  means  of  character  building  and  as  the 
demonstrator  of  the  highest  manhood.  How  can 
we  advocate  reducing  work  to  its  lowest  prac- 
ticable point  if  we  have  left  in  us  any  of  the 
spirit  of  him  who  said,  "I  must  work  the  works 
of  him  that  sent  me  while  it  is  day;  for  the  night 
cometh  when  no  man  can  work." 

Now  what  about  the  eight-hour-day  which 
seems  to  be  so  popular  an  ideal  in  these  times 
and  is  so  glorified  by  our  Interchurch  Report  ? 
It  may  be  that  eight  hours  is  a  good  standard 
day  for  reckoning  a  unit  of  toil;  but  this  world 
would  have  empty  larders  and  raw  comforts  if 
men  didn't  work  more  than  eight  hours  in 
twenty-four.  Nature  is  so  obdurate  and  man's 
needs  are  so  many  that  it  is  physically  impossible 
to  produce  what  we  need  in  those  hours.  The 
ordinary  man  who  works  eight  hours  in  paid 
employment  puts  in  several  more  hours  in  mak- 
ing his  home.  Men  who  succeed  in  reaching  the 
places  of  power  and  influence  are  usually  those 
who  keep  on  working  after  their  companions 
have  quit. 

One  of  the  good  things  in  the  steel  industry 
and  in  some  others  which  have  not  been  too 
heavily  unionized  is  the  freedom  afforded  to 
some  strong  and  industrious  men  more  nearly 
to  fill  their  capacity  for  work  and  to  reap  the 
corresponding  reward.  Excessive  toil  is  suicide; 
but  many  generations  of  experience  have 
proved  that  men  have  healthy  capacity  for 
more  than  eight  hours  toil  and  our  Inter- 
church  Commission  is  far  too  easily  captivated 
by  the  labor  union  slogan  of  eight  hours  and  far 
too  ready  to  condemn  the  Steel  Corporation  for 
allowing  more  than  half  its  men  to  work  beyond 
the  eight  and  ten  hour  stint.  It  is  clear  that  most 
of  the  steel  men  who  work  the  long  hours  for 
extra  pay  prefer  to  do  it  even  to  the  extent  of 
twelve  hours  which  enables  them  to  make  an 
even  shift  in  processes  that  are  continuous  for 
twenty-four  hours.  But  it  may  be  that  the  evils 
connected  with  the  twelve-hour  shifts  over- 
balance the  benefits;  in  which  case  a  change  of 

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some  sort  will  have  to  be  made;  but  that  change 
will  be  safer  in  the  hands  of  the  men  who  are 
running  the  steel  business  than  it  would  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  Interchurch  Commission  or  in 
those  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  which  is  in  bondage  to 
an  eight-hour  dogma. 

In  the  Commission's  condemnation  of  the  low 
wages  paid  to  the  unskilled  steel  workers  there 
is  both  tragedy  and  humor.  They  charge  the 
Corporation  with  cruelty  for  paying  unskilled 
workmen  only  $1,466  a  year  upon  which  to 
support  a  family;  claiming  that  it  is  less  than 
the  minimum  subsistence  of  a  family  of  five. 

Prof.  W.  F.  Ogburn,  employedbyour  Govern- 
ment as  an  expert,  fixed  the  minimum  subsis- 
tence cost  for  an  American  family  of  five  at 
$1,575  for  the  year  1919;  but  there  are  57,000 
unskilled  U.  S.  steel  workers  who  are  paid  but 
$1,466  a  year.  You  might  think  a  group  of 
churchmen  like  our  Commission  would  feel  the 
tragedy  of  this  deficient  pay;  but  the  tragedy  is 
turned  to  sardonic  humor  when  we  remember 
that  90,000  preachers  in  our  land  who  are  skilled 
workmen  receive  only  $800,  $700  or  $600  a  year. 
They  manage  to  subsist  upon  one  half  of  what 
Prof.  Ogburn  says  is  minimum  subsistence. 

Are  the  preachers'  families  any  less  worthy 
than  the  Poles,  the  Serbs,  and  Syrians  that  work 
for  the  steel  trust?  Is  their  crushed  ambition 
any  less  pitiable?  And  if  we  churchmen  accept 
this  report  we  shall  confirm  the  Commission's 
judgment  against  the  Steel  company  for  treat- 
ing their  employees  not  one  half  so  shabbily  as 
we  treat  the  paid  workmen  of  our  churches. 
I  hear  the  words  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth 
saying  to  us,  "Ye  hypocrits,  first  cast  out  the 
beam  out  of  your  own  eyes,  then  ye  shall  see 
more  clearly  to  cast  out  the  mote  out  of  your 
brother's  eye." 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  blemish  upon  the  work 
of  our  Commission  to  which  I  will  call  your 
attention  is  their  ignoring  of  the  unjustifiable 
buccaneering  practised  by  the  A.  F.  of  L.  in  its 
attack  upon  the  Steel  Corporation.  It  was 
deliberately  planned  that  twenty-four  different 
trade  unions  should  join  in  the  campaign  and 
share  the  booty  in  the  many  thousands  of 
members  to  be  gained  by  unionizing  the  steel 
works  at  $3  a  member.  They  underwrote  a  fund 

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of  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  and  set  an  army 
of  spies  and  borers  at  work  in  all  the  factories, 
whose  business  it  was  to  alienate  as  many 
workers  as  possible,  and  to  make  such  a  stam- 
pede of  the  mass  of  illiterate  unskilled  workmen 
that  the  Steel  Corporation  would  be  made  help- 
less and  ruined  unless  it  yielded  to  the  demands 
of  the  Federation. 

Now  the  A.  F.  of  L.  is  somewhat  aristocratic 
as  compared  with  the  I.  W.  W.  or  the  Workers 
International  Industrial  Union,  and  it  usually 
seeks  for  members  among  the  skilled  workers. 
But  the  treatment  of  skilled  workers  by  the 
Steel  Corporation  is  so  much  better  than  they 
could  get  from  the  A.  F.  of  L.  that  they  were  a 
poor  quarry  for  the  organizers,  and  Mr.  Foster, 
who  was  formerly  an  I.  W.  W.,  persuaded  the 
Federation  to  make  overtures  to  the  foreign, 
illiterate  and  unskilled  masses. 

Mr.  Foster's  conception  of  the  task  was  thor- 
oughly military  and  his  naive  account  of  it 
shows  his  complete  confidence  that  the 
guardians  of  peace  and  of  citizens'  rights  would 
permit  all  the  ruthless  ravages  that  he  planned. 
He  speaks  of  his  "policy  of  encirclement," 
"taking  up  outposts,"  "flank  attacks,"  "feints" 
to  cover  "secret  attacks,"  and  many  other  items 
of  military  strategy,  indicating  a  clear  purpose 
of  violence  up  to  the  limit  permitted  by  law,  and 
then  some. 

Does  any  one  doubt  the  wisdom,  justice  and 
necessity  of  a  spy  system  on  the  part  of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation  in  sheer  self  defense?  How 
could  a  victim  of  such  attack  do  any  less  than  to 
use  all  legal  means  of  resisting  the  violence  with- 
out, and  the  incendiary  foes  within? 

Bear  in  mind  that  the  source  of  all  this  was 
the  outside  committee  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  and 
their  purpose  was  to  compel  the  Steel  Corpor- 
ation to  do  business  with  them,  and  they  were 
spending  over  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  to 
damage  the  Corporation  to  the  extent  of  millions 
of  dollars  or  to  render  it  helpless. 

Now,  such  a  purpose  of  buccaneering  was 
charged  to  the  Standard  Oil  Company  some 
years  ago,  because  they  tried  to  compel  certain 
other  oil  companies  to  do  business  with  them. 
It  was  charged  that  they  would  do  every 
damage  permitted  by  law,  secretly,  openly,  by 

22 


hired  mercenaries  a  A  000  094  808  3 
would  readily  forgive  any  henchmen  lor  doing 
violence  beyond  the  law  in  their  determination 
to  do  business  with  any  obstinate  oil  company. 
Now  one  of  our  famous  churchmen,  the  late 
Washington  Gladden,  even  before  these  charges 
were  legally  proved,  stirred  up  thousands  of  our 
fellow  churchmen  and  social  reformers  to  de- 
nounce the  Standard  Oil  Company. 

Where  are  these  altruistic  champions  of 
human  rights  who  condemn  such  buccaneering 
within  the  limits  of  the  law  because  it  violates 
fundamental. human  rights?  Indeed  if  I  mistake 
not  every  one  of  our  Interchurch  Commission 
belonged  to  that  select  band  of  our  sainted 
Gladden;  where  are  they  standing  in  the 
presence  of  this  gigantic  campaign  of 
buccaneering? 

I  charge  them,  everyone,  with  recreancy  from 
their  high  principle  of  defending  the  unwritten 
rights  of  men  because  they  have  excused  and 
condoned  the  uncriminal  violence  of  the 
American  F.  of  L.  in  their  deliberate  and  un- 
justifiable Steel  strike.  In  the  name  of  decency 
the  Interchurch  Commission's  report  must  be 
repudiated ! 


23 


